Monday, January 27, 2014

Footsteps

I've told the story of mysterious tapping at the windows on my first dark rainy night here alone, how I went from room to room with beating heart trying to catch those who would play such a mean trick, and how I found out it was just big, bumbling pine beetles brought out by moisture and drawn by light.

Yesterday morning, just after first light, I heard footsteps. It sounded like someone or something was tromping on the deck, but looking out every window I saw no one and nothing. The steps would stop, and then start again. Bess affirmed that it wasn't my imagination. It was a little unnerving.

Going out for a walkabout, as is my morning wont, I noticed a number of turkeys high in the oak. These guys have to be fifty or more feet off the ground, and there were many more waiting below for breakfast. (Note the clumps of dreaded mistletoe.)

Then I heard footsteps again. These three hens were part of a dozen or more turkeys on my roof! They'd been running back and forth up there since sunup. The mystery of the phantom footsteps was solved, but I'm left to wonder the why of it. Whatever possessed these birds to get up there in the first place? If unusual behavior earns a creature a place on the totem pole, then I guess turkeys hold that title here.